Seoul National University Also Hit by 28 Hacking Incidents in Six Years… 1,132 Pieces of Personal Information Leaked | #hacking | #cybersecurity | #infosec | #comptia | #pentest | #hacker

Hackers Target Department, Research Institute, and Laboratory Systems

A total of 28 hacking incidents have occurred at Seoul National University over the past six years, resulting in the leak of 1,132 pieces of personal information.

According to data on hacking incidents by year that Seoul National University submitted on October 11 to Assemblywoman Baek Seunga of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly’s Education Committee, a total of 28 hacking incidents were confirmed between 2021 and 2026.

By year, there were eight incidents in 2021, 10 in 2022, one in 2024, and five in 2025. Four hacking incidents have also occurred so far this year. By type of target, department systems were the most frequently affected, with 19 incidents. There were six incidents involving laboratory systems and two involving research institutes, as well as one incident affecting an entire institution.

A total of 1,132 pieces of personal information were leaked over the six-year period. Of these, 1,130 were exposed in a hacking incident in 2021. At the time, hackers installed malware that allowed them to remotely issue commands to Seoul National University servers and stole personal identification information and portal IDs belonging to members of the university community. The remaining two cases of personal information exposure occurred in a 2024 hacking incident involving a research institute. The hackers were found to have targeted researchers’ profiles and résumé files. No personal information leaks were confirmed in the other hacking incidents.

More than 500 hacking attempts targeting Seoul National University were also found to have occurred each year. The number of hacking attempts detected and blocked by the university rose from 561 in 2024 to 575 in 2025. A further 588 attempts have been detected so far this year.

Regarding these figures, Seoul National University said, “They represent hacking attempts detected and blocked through security monitoring. We prevented incidents from escalating through real-time responses and immediately completed security measures.”

Seoul National University said it immediately reported confirmed cases of personal information leaks to the Ministry of Education or the Personal Information Protection Commission. It added that it had never requested an investigation by law enforcement authorities.

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